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LEIPZIG, GERMANY-The tour guide steers us through Connewitz, a neighbourhood where turn-of-the-century and Soviet architecture dominate the streets, in a Trabant — the tiny, blustering, German Democratic Republic-era car that auto aficionados and Germans alike fondly remember.

Between gear changes, Frank Luckert tells how almost 100,000 people hastily left Leipzig after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. “In some cases, people left their flats as they were, everything inside,” he says.

Even at the dawn of reunification, the government continued to allocate apartments, and wait times to move were vexingly long.

Following the mass population exodus, punks, anarchists and regular work-a-day Leipzigers began to occupy the empty flats in Connewitz and other neighbourhoods.

They started their own “living projects,” as Luckert calls them, in which they renovated and repaired buildings neglected under the Soviet government. “There was kind of an occupiers’ scene here in Connewitz,” he says.

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Eventually the city government began to make contracts with the occupiers and “the free scene” became more regulated. But the early ’90s left a large impression on Leipzig, where creativity and ingenuity is very much a part of life.

The city of 520,000 people has become a major draw for artists and other creative types, where cheap rents are plentiful, anarchist and anti-fascist graffiti adorn apartment building façades, and an internationally renowned goth fest (wave-gotik-treffen.de/english ) brings 20,000 festival goers to the city annually.

Dubbed “The New Berlin” by hype-seekers and trend-watchers, Leipzig is happening. Spend a few days here and you’ll realize the city is very much its own creation.

Established as a trading epicentre during the Holy Roman Empire, Leipzig has a long history of being an intellectual hub. Writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, composer Richard Wagner and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche all once traversed the cobblestone streets of the historic city centre. The remains of composer Johan Sebastian Bach rest in a grave in St. Thomas Church, the same church in which he conducted the boys’ choir for nearly 30 years.

We putt along in the Trabant (trabi-erleben.de) east of Connewitz and arrive at another reminder of Leipzig’s high historic calibre. The Monument to the Battle of the Nations, an ominous-looking stone structure of epic proportion, sits in a field, where Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden had forced Napoleon’s army to retreat and return to France, but not before more than 100,000 soldiers had died.

Regimes that controlled Leipzig over the 20th century have repeatedly misinterpreted the monument’s meaning. The Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and later the Soviets used it as a symbol for their ideologies. Now, the monument again reflects its original intention: acting as a solemn symbol of remembrance to lives lost and the cost of war.

The Trabant tour ends at the stone courtyard of the Spinnerei, a former cotton mill transformed in the ’90s to house a labyrinth of galleries, studios and residences. More than 100 artists use the massive complex for their work, and it has become a major attraction for both art aficionados and tourists.

Michael Ludwig, the Spinnerei’s head of information, heads up and down freight elevators and into the loft-like spaces of the Spinnerei’s brick buildings, meeting artists at work along the way. It all feels more like a neighbourhood than an industrial site. We stop at Luru, a mid-century-themed art house cinema Ludwig runs with resident artist Christoph Ruckhaberle. From the bar in the lobby, Ludwig serves a bottle of the locally made LIPZ Lemonade. Its psychedelic label matches the cinema’s wallpaper, both designed by Ruckhaberle.

A day traversing Leipzig is capped off with a beer in Plagwitz, a youthful neighbourhood lined with bars where artists and students mix. In Dr. Seltsam, bike wheels hang from the ceiling and tools adorn the walls. The bar functions as a bike-repair shop during the day. At this point it’s no surprise. In Leipzig, things are always a little more than what they seem.

Grace Lisa Scott’s trip was sponsored by the German National Tourist Board, which didn’t review or approve this story.

When you Go

Get there: Lufthansa flies daily from Toronto to Leipzig/Halle Airport. The city is also a 1.5-hour train ride from Berlin.

Get around: Take your own Trabant tour: trabi-erleben.de

When to go: Much like Canada, Germany is chilly in the winter months. Although visiting during the winter season would allow one to visit Leipzig’s famous Christmas Market in the historic city centre, it’s easier to walk this lovely city in the warmer months, from May to October.

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